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It Won't Be Forever

Meg Carrie • Apr 02, 2020

By Meg Carrie

Just over 3 years ago I found myself in my own crisis. My brother was on his motorbike headed for home when he was hit by a drunk driver. I happened to be 500 meters down the road from the accident scene and I got there as soon as I heard the news. I stood over his limp body, his jeans and jacket ripped open, his blood spilled on the floor, cars tipped over on their sides, empty beer bottles strewn across the road, the ambulance lights swirled around and around and around, until eventually, it all stopped. 

The lights stopped moving, his heart stopped beating, his lungs pushed out their last breath, and with that my world stopped turning.

I was in a crisis. 

And these past few weeks of processing the trauma that this pandemic has caused our world, and the crisis we find ourselves in, has brought up many a moment of deja-vu. Waves of “I’ve been here before” and “this is all too familiar.” Not knowing what the next hour would hold, let alone the next day or the next week. The overwhelming, ever-engulfing emotion that swallows you whole whenever you start to delve into the black hole of “What will my future look like?” - unfathomable to even think such thoughts. Or trying to figure out the "new normal", when you can’t even remember what normal felt like. Or waking up in the morning and thinking it was all a dream, until it isn’t.

It’s all too familiar.

But I remember these words from a dear friend of mine who walked me through my grieving journey, four words that sunk deep into my heart. I remember saying to her, in utter desperation, “But Mich, when will it end? When will the pain go away? When will I feel normal again?” And she replied gently, “It won’t be forever.”

And I want to say to you, you who are crying out in desperation, for your job, for your income, for your child’s education, for your business, staring into the abyss of the unknown, asking, “When will it end? When will the pain go away? When will I feel normal again?” 

I want to take you by the hand, look you in the eye and tell you that “It won’t be forever."
By Chantelle Gibbs 09 Jun, 2020
May 30, 2020 x 11:13pm So heavy everything feels heavy my whole body aches with — heavy I snapped at Mom tonight who turned on the news to watch the riots Where are the police? she exclaimed, as they panned the empty streets the looting the uniforms and red lights flashing. it threw me that question alone — triggering and I snapped, anger surfacing because I’m not looking for them in the pictures of the riots in the footage and the coverage I do not want to see them. I’m looking for the anger and pain and hurt and exhaustion on faces with skin like my own like a fogged up mirror you rub until you can find your reflection again I am looking for it so I can find it for myself as I come up for air from these tears, breath somehow still left in this paralyzed body I’ve been in, somehow moving in every day this week. And today, as more texts come and calls and FaceTimes too, it hurts a bit, you know? they come in droves to check in: for their own guilty conscience or sincere solidarity, I’m not quite sure as if you’ve been in the hospital for so long with all your cuts and bruises and bleeding and heart cracked open and someone shows up years later years later years late and says, “I heard you were in the hospital/ I’m so sorry / I’m with you.” and while better late than never, I suppose, it still stings a little because you can’t help but wonder: where have you been? And it’s heavy to know (my heart sinks lower by the minute) that in all these spaces with all these people my list of white friends & neighbors - they will call on me now or else I now feel more agency to call them out now; and that will be work tireless endless work to explain why you cannot say this why you must not do that and to already see the arduous call leaves me tired tonight I’m so tired tonight I am grieving tonight I need God tonight.
By Micaela Fox 28 Apr, 2020
Before I say anything, I extend deep deep compassion and love to those currently sick with Covid-19 and their families. To their friends who can’t visit them, my heart is with you deeply. To the single mom trying to make ends meet and raise her kids after being laid off, much less homeschool them—you are a hero. To the kids who have to be stuck at home when school felt like the only safe place for them, my heart is for you. To the elderly who find themselves alone in a nursing home scared, I am thinking of you. To the Asian American who has experienced racial backlash—I am gutted and so so sorry…I stand with you vehemently. To the auto-immune compromised thinking it was already enough trying to live in a body that felt like it was working against them, much less be afraid of something else invisible that feels like it’s out to get them, you are not alone. My prayers are towards you constantly and I stand beside you. To the senior in high school who didn’t get to go to prom and the senior in college who didn’t get your graduation, to those that lost their jobs, to all who need to hear…I’m so sorry nothing feels normal right now. I’m sorry if you feel something was ripped out from under you, it was and that isn’t fair. There is suffering right now and without looking away from it, I call us to face it together hand in hand. I’m not here to minimize the pain. I’m not here to give you a bible verse to put a bandaid on the fear. I’m not here shame all the stress you may feel within you. I’m here to build a bridge for you and I to walk onto. We don’t need anymore walls. We’ve had those for too long, within society and within our own hearts. It’s time for bridges. Bridges of understanding and radical acceptance. Bridges of acknowledging mystery together. Bridges in the gaps of experience and where tension can be most felt. For it’s in tension that things are birthed and it’s in tension that things emerge. In this global pandemic and in this quarantine we are all finding ourselves in tension. This is where the hidden things are suddenly illuminated. It’s not a wonder why most of avoid tension as much as possible. But it’s this that calls into question what we will choose to do with what is surfaced. Much of the work of authentic spirituality and human development happens in these spaces of tension. As Richard Rohr says, “This space shatters our ego’s illusions and false payoffs. It invites us to discover and live from broader perspectives and with much deeper seeing. We need to be silent instead of speaking, experience emptiness instead of fullness, anonymity instead of persona, and pennilessness instead of plenty. In this space, we descend and intentionally do not come back out or up immediately. It takes time but this experience can help us reenter the world with freedom and new, creative approaches to life.” Would we be willing here to walk to the edges of our own paradigms? Would we be willing to face what is emerging within ourselves, our ways of being and expand our souls purity and ability to love? Would we be willing to cross onto the other side together? In ways better said, hilariously enough, by the only Italian word I’ve ever memorized from reading Eat, Pray, Love in high school— Attraversiamo, meaning let us cross over. Let us cross over into hope, let us cross over into newness, and let us cross over into awakening. To come together in unity right now no matter our paradigms or theological stances, no matter how together or messy we feel right now but to simply take the walk together. For the very vulnerability and openness the space of this quarantine has created allows room for something genuinely new to happen. We are white canvases ready for new paint. Let us cross over and open our eyes to truly see, awake. For maybe it’s not fully a nightmare, again in no ways disregarding the places it may truly feel like it, but maybe in a lot of ways we’re becoming awake. Today I watched a forty year old man driving slow with his hand out his window, surfing on the wind with his fingers finding its current waving up and down like a kid. Just like a kid. I smiled and felt my usual lead foot begin to ease up as I began to feel peace enjoying him enjoying the feeling of the wind lifting his hand up and down as he rode. Everything in me began to slow down as I followed him for about a mile, just studying his hand. Slow down. Slow down. We’ve all just needed to slow down for a little bit, haven’t we? Really since the invention of the internet ushered in the information age, hurry exploded into our hearts like leaven. It took residence, whether known or not, seeping into our culture, into our dogmatic ways of thinking, and into our nationalism. Our haunting lack of bipartisanship, overwhelming consumerism, greed for more instantly, rush for significance, underlying anger and striving for promotion, on and on. We have been running on treadmills growing old staring at the same wall- disconnection, confusion, numbness, exhaustion, envy, greed, living frayed at the ends. You know something is array in a culture when it becomes normal to hear: “I’m good, just busy” almost every time you asked someone how they are doing. As if busyness and goodness, somehow became synonymous. I guess that’s what happens when productivity becomes a god. Heaven forbid. And yup, here we are. It’s taken me weeks to even figure out how to gather words for all of this and even now I know, it’s like sand running through my hands. But that’s okay. None of us saw this coming— a global pandemic that has halted all of us in our tracks, some of us probably for the first time in a long time. And to reiterate, It’s things like this that surface all the subconscious, suppressed emotions, and thoughts that could have been bottled up in us for years. Where for all of us our natural cycles have been interrupted—well, maybe not parents with kids, haha bless you— but that we have been forced to return and be alone with our thoughts in the chambers of our hearts. Because of this, I believe we are actually starting to hear our hearts again and waking up to the sounds of the hearts around us. I’ve heard a friend say that they laid in the grass and don’t remember the last time they just watched the clouds roll by. As sad as that is, to recognize we’ve been living so hurried we have forgotten to simply be still, it’s miraculous and beautiful that finally we are slowing down in this quarantine. We are waking up. We are listening again. And in the exposing, there is the messy, the emotions we don’t want to face, the thoughts we still want to ignore, the painful, the beautiful, the remembering, the re-centering, and the healing. Another friend told me that she went to go get a tune up on her bike at the bike shop and he said they are book through the month which has never happened before because everyone has suddenly been bringing their bikes in for tune ups. She said he said that bikes were coming in that looked like they had been in a shed for 20 years, with dust on them. That’s what’s happening. We’re leaving the shed of the past. We’re shaking off the dust. We’re reconnecting with the sacredness of our humanity. I have a friend who lives in New York City and has made quite a way for himself in the music film industry. He posted a poll on his instagram story of two questions and their answers have stuck with me deeply. “Has this time led you to believe you have been too busy in your “regular” day to day life?” Answer: 62% yes, 38% no “Do you plan to make adjustments to your schedule when “Normal” life resumes?” Answer: 81% yes, 19% no We’re waking up. To the sacredness of what really matters, the holiness and nearness of our God who is Emmanuel, connection with others and self, community, beauty, rest. We’re coming back to the dinner tables and getting to know our neighbors we’ve lived to next to for years but have yet to truly connect with, we’re working out again, we’re calling old friends for hours, we’re walking more than ever, we’re riding on bikes with our families in parks, we’re painting, we’re watching the sunsets, we’re laying in the grass and watching the clouds roll by like a kid again. Like a kid again. We’re feeling and listening to the sacredness of very own breath. Becoming aware again of the sacred inhale and exhale. Of life itself. We’re waking up. Breathe in deep. O sleeper, come awake. Awake, awake. Put on your strength. Let us cross over.
By Ben Saunders 28 Apr, 2020
Today I lay down and put my head under my desk, I hadn't done that before. It's only a small room and I thought I knew it well, but things looked different from down there, it felt bigger somehow. In the same way when I look out of my window, the world seems bigger. The view hasn't changed, I think I just notice more than I did before. Even the gamesome pigeons that flirt about the chimney stacks speak a loveliness as the last light of the day catches the underside of their wings. There's a sitcom taking place across the road, a young couple forced to stay at home. It's not a show that I've chosen to watch but it is hard to ignore, an argument, a make up, a mid afternoon Zumba class. I don't know them but I appreciate them, I wish the best for them and smile to them when we're outside clapping on a Thursday night. The builders arrive at 7:45 but they don't start working until 8. I wake at 7:45 and think about going back to sleep until the builders start at 8. There's a comforting rhythm to it and a connection forms though I don't speak their language or know their names. I think about their families, about what makes them laugh, what makes them quarrel. I wonder if it's as fun as it looks to operate that crane. Bath time coincides with the end of the working day. I don't have a bath time anymore but the neighbours do, the room is next to mine. Just a wall between us. Splashes and giggles, memories of my own childhood invade like a wave. Intimate moments a mother shares with her children that I shouldn't be privy to but am. The light changes on the wall as the sun moves across the sky. It's not something that you can watch happen, In fact the more one tries to notice, the slower the change appears. What will have changed when this time comes to an end? When the physical constraints of our existence moves back from this smattering of rooms to an endless offering of space. When we begin to measure distance in miles and hours instead of footsteps and minutes. Will I still notice the little things when I return to passing countless faces on the morning commute? Will I be washed by nostalgia at the end of each day? Will I crane my neck to watch as the truck is relieved of yet another heavy load? Will the light on the feathers of a pigeon catch my eye? Will I still lie down and put my head under my desk just to see what it's like from down there? My room is one of the biggest places I know. I suppose what I mean to say is that there are things worth noticing all around and it seems that up until now I've been spoilt for choice. As a generation we are told that the world is our oyster; but when we have an abundance of options and a scrolling of comparisons, it can be easy to discount the wonders on our doorstep, diminish the beauty in the small things and ignore the people right in front of us. So I welcome my new condensed world with it’s simple delights and quiet pleasures and I hope in some strange way that things never quite return to the way they were before.
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